Will Pirates' Efforts to Improve Alter Brewers' Offseason Plans?

[Matthew Trueblood]

Image courtesy of © Charles LeClaire-Imagn Images

The Pittsburgh Pirates have been oddly busy this winter. They haven't yet made the kind of financial splash that would grab attention and fuel friendlier narratives, but as Brewers fans know, it doesn't always take a crowd-pleasingly spendy move to win games. Pittsburgh has already traded right-handed starter Johan Oviedo to Boston, to snare outfield prospect Jhostynxon García, and sent young starter Mike Burrows to the Astros in a three-team trade that brought them three helpful players: slugging second baseman Brandon Lowe, slap-hitting outfielder Jake Mangum and hard-throwing reliever Mason Montgomery. They've also signed reliever Gregory Soto, to bolster their bullpen.

If you believe in the likelihood of a rebound from outfielders Oneil Cruz and Bryan Reynolds (or are bullish on the rotation even beyond Paul Skenes), you can start to squint your way to expecting competitiveness for the 2026 Pirates. This team is going to make an earnest (if untenably stingy) effort to upset and unseat the Brewers, and even if you don't think they're good enough to do so, their moving and shaking is affecting how the three-time defending NL Central champions are going about their business.

By trading Oviedo to the Red Sox and Burrows to the Astros, the Pirates have diluted and softened the demand for Freddy Peralta in trades. Their acquisition of Lowe gives them a fairly dangerous trio of lefty bats, with Cruz and Spencer Horwitz joining their new teammate to pose a threat. Beating next year's Pirates will be harder than beating any recent year's version, even when it's non-Skenes starting hurlers' turns. 

An upstart Pittsburgh club also threatens to raise the floor for the whole division and make it harder to get to a Wild Card-worthy win total, should another team knock Milwaukee from its perch. So far, it's mostly felt like the odds of a Peralta trade were rising steadily, all winter. That might need to change, though, if the Brewers perform ongoing projections and realize their edge (not only over the Cubs, Reds and Pirates, but over the other contenders for Wild Card berths and seeding in the NL) is shrinking more than expected.

The Cardinals have already traded Sonny Gray and Willson Contreras, and they're likely to ship out Brendan Donovan. They're only taking in players who look like solid potential trade chips, come July. There will be some free wins scattered around the schedule next year, but it will feel like fewer than in the recent past. The Brewers have a mandate to pursue a championship in 2026. Doing that is getting harder, so the Crew might need to make new plans that involve more aggressive additions or fewer subtractions. The Pirates don't feel like an especially real threat to win the division, but that doesn't mean their frisky offseason is unimportant.

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[SandyTolan]

>>> By trading Oviedo to the Red Sox and Burrows to the Astros, the Pirates have diluted and softened the demand for Freddy Peralta in trades.

Not so sure about that. Oviedo is not anywhere near the same level as Freddy, and if the Red Sox were serious about landing Freddy before, I doubt this acquisition dampens that one bit.  As for Burrows, I'll grant you he's closer to Freddy than Oviedo, but if Houston was interested before, I'd say they still are. Burrows is not a big difference-maker imho. Neither pitcher is anything close to Freddy Peralta. 

But, good analysis of the Pirates' moves. They do seem to be making a statement. Maybe they'll be over .500 in 2026, though as you suggest, I doubt they'll challenge the Crew.

[Brewcrew82]

When has what another team has done impacted the strategy of this FO? Hint: Never. 

[sveumrules]

Last year the Pirates pitching staff (23.6 rWAR | 5th) was essentially a wash with the Brewers (24.0 rWAR | 4th).

Unfortunately their position players (6.6 WAR | 28th) were essentially a wash with the Angels (6.9 WAR | 27th) and White Sox (6.1 WAR | 29th).

For reference, when the Brewers won the division in 2021 with top notch pitching (26.6 rWAR | 3rd) and more questionable position players (17.8 WAR | 20th) they were still eleven wins ahead of last years Pirates.

It's neat that the Pirates are finally kind of sort of trying again now with Skenes on the scene, but they are probably going to need another two or three Lowe calibre moves if they want to add another ten plus wins on offense over their 2025 results.

 

[Michael Trzinski]

If I was a Pirates fan I would be wondering why they traded away two of their top five (six) starters. Hunter Barco will probably make the rotation, and Thomas Harrington might. All of the other prospects are at least two years out. 

[eddiemathews]

The Red Sox traded Hunter Dobbins, a likely rotation piece, so they still need starting pitching.

[sveumrules]

27 minutes ago, Michael Trzinski said:

If I was a Pirates fan I would be wondering why they traded away two of their top five (six) starters. Hunter Barco will probably make the rotation, and Thomas Harrington might. All of the other prospects are at least two years out. 

Looks like they ended last year with Skenes, Mitch Keller, Braxton Ashcraft and Bubba Chandler in the rotation along with the now departed Oviedo and Burrows.

FanGraphs currently has Carmen Mlodzinski (99 IP of 83 ERA- | 81 FIP- in a swingman role last year) slotted in at the #5 spot on their Roster Resource page. Not sure what his exact timeline is (last pitched Sept. 27th 2024) but Jared Jones should be back at some point in 2026 too. 

But yeah, probably don't want to trade any more SP at this point to maintain depth, unless they were to backfill that spot with a cheap vet signing like Jose Quintana or whatever. So any more additions are probably going to have to come via FA at this point.

What do they got?

Catcher: Joey Bart (2.7 WAR is 28th among catchers last two years) Henry Davis (former #1 overall pick with 660 PA of 53 wRC+ and -1.6 WAR so far)

First Base/DH: Brandon Lowe (unless they want to mess with playing him at 2B after an adventurous -14 DRS | -9 FRV at the keystone last year) Spencer Horwitz (411 PA of 119 wRC+ for 1.7 WAR in 2025)

Second Base: Nick Yorke ?? (114 PA of 68 wRC+ to start his career)

Shortstop: Nick Gonzales ?? (932 PA of 84 wRC+ with -16 DRS | +1 FRV in 1,695 innings at 2B, only 230 innings of SS so far)

Third Base: Jared Triolo ?? (1,031 PA of 87 wRC+ with +13 DRS | +8 FRV in 1,096 innings at the hot corner)

Outfield: Jake Mangum (his 1.8 WAR in 2025 would have been the most on the Pirates) Oneil Cruz (offense crashed to 86 wRC+, defense got mixed reviews at -17 DRS | +5 FRV) Bryan Reynolds (after posting a 117 wRC+ from 2022-24, fell off to a 99 wRC+ in 2025. ) The Password (intriguing tools and name, but hasn't really hit since reaching AA)

Of course they have super prospect Konnor Griffin (563 PA of 165 wRC+ between A/A+/AA last year) likely to take over one of those infield spots in 2026 but the way I see it they need at least two more infielders plus bounce backs from Cruz & Reynolds, and probably another catcher to split time with Bart before they have something resembling a cromulent group of position players. 

 

[Michael Trzinski]

55 minutes ago, sveumrules said:

Looks like they ended last year with Skenes, Mitch Keller, Braxton Ashcraft and Bubba Chandler in the rotation along with the now departed Oviedo and Burrows.

FanGraphs currently has Carmen Mlodzinski (99 IP of 83 ERA- | 81 FIP- in a swingman role last year) slotted in at the #5 spot on their Roster Resource page. Not sure what his exact timeline is (last pitched Sept. 27th 2024) but Jared Jones should be back at some point in 2026 too. 

But yeah, probably don't want to trade any more SP at this point to maintain depth, unless they were to backfill that spot with a cheap vet signing like Jose Quintana or whatever. So any more additions are probably going to have to come via FA at this point.

 

My bad. I believe I wrote the Pirates preview before the 2025 campaign, so I should have remembered they had some decent SP depth.  But sending out two pretty solid starters seems to be asking for trouble. Remember what happened to the Brewers last spring...

[gregmag]

I don’t hate what the Pirates have done, but it seems a lot closer to making moves for the sake of making moves than it does to making any kind of meaningful statement.

Could they be better next year? Sure. I would kind of hope so. Any team that bad should by all rights get at least somewhat better. But at this moment, I can’t see any reason to think the division overall will be better next year.